per capita wealth has doubled a dozen times or more, dozens of killer diseases have been eliminated, billions of people have benefited from medicine and public health, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union have been defeated, the mean lifespan has been extended, we have nifty quartz watches that synchronize daily with a standard time source, and the internet.
Point being, lots of things have happened in the last 140 years.
Yes. And all the bad ones are the result of eeeevilll-louuu-shun!
</creationoid mode>
Yep, lots of things have. The things surrounding morality as a major issue have gone into the toilet since the 60s. Evolution didn't get into the classroom til about then - between 59 and 63 if memory serves. At which point it all started going to hell in a handbasket. The Nazis were defeated in the 40s - by a generation not profaned by evolution. The soviet Union fell because of the conviction of a single man - Ronald Reagan. And he was fought at every turn by relativists who were sure we'd be slaughtered by the foul beastly commies if we didn't stop talking truthfully about them. You coulnd't call them evil, as a matter of fact, because what is evil when you grew up on evolution, situational ethics and moral relativism. Once you kicked God out of school, you kicked the ten commandments out too.
With that went the foundations of morality in this country.
premarital sex, babies out of wedlock, abortions, etc exploded from that point and have taken us to the abyss.
Lot's of things have happened. They didn't "just" happen. And the impact can't be just waved off. It is there and trackable in the data. And it's across the board, you name the illicit activity and you can track it's progression all the way back to the early 60s when this nation began teaching evolution in schools and kicked God out of the classroom. When your kid comes home with an STD, Aids or something of the like, you can sleep well at night knowing that the choices you make have a major impact on others.